NOTES Page 1.—1. Madame, i. e. Henrietta-Anna (1644-1670), daughter of Charles I. of England and Henrietta-Maria of France, and since 1661 first Duchess of Orleans, a most estimable, charming, and cultured woman, whose virtues are commemorated in the dedication to Molière's École des Femmes, and in the most eloquent of the funeral orations of Bossuet. Page 2. — 1. règles, i. e. of dramatic composition. See Introduction, page xiv. Page 3. 1. The lines cited are from Virgil's Eneid, v. 292-332: "We were coasting along Epirus and entered a port of Chaonium and ascended to the lofty city of Buthrotum. It happened that day that Andromache was bearing to the ashes of Hector solemn libations and sad offerings. She summoned the Manes at the empty tomb on the verdant mound that she had consecrated with two altars, an occasion for tears. She bent her head and said in a low voice: 'Happy among all was the virgin daughter of Priam (i. e. Polyxena) destined to die on the pyre of an enemy beneath the lofty walls of Troy. She underwent not the insult of the casting of lots nor, a captive, decked the bed of a conqueror, her master. I, leaving my country in flames, borne over distant seas, have brought forth in slavery and have suffered the pride of the son of Achilles, Pyrrhus, this haughty young chief, who then becoming attached to Hermione, allied himself to the Spartan blood, to the race of Leda. . . . But behold how in ardent passion for a woman of whom he is bereft, pursued by the Furies of crime, Orestes surprises him and slays him beside the paternal altars.' Page 4. poet. -1. Euripide, Euripides (480–406 B. C.), Greek tragic 2. On the faithfulness to tradition of Racine's drama, see Introduc tion, pages x-xii. 93 3. mœurs, behavior, conduct. Cp. Latin mores. 4. Céladon, an affected lover in Urfé's novel, Astrée, which exercised a great influence on the social life of Racine's day. It was in great measure the immediate source of the Euphuistic diction that is made the subject of Molière's satire in les Précieuses ridicules. Euphuism reached its highest development in the novels of Madeleine de Scudéry, but is by no means absent from Andromaque, as these notes will show. The French call those who cultivated this affected diction Précieux. 5. parfait amour, ironical use of a favorite expression in the current novels of Racine's day. 6. chagrin, dissatisfaction here. 7. Horace (Art of Poetry, 121), describes Achilles as impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, paraphrased here by farouche, inexorable, violent. 8. Aristote, Aristotle, in his Poetics, 13. Page 7. -1. Ronsard (1524-1585) a noted French poet. His unfinished Franciade, an epic on the origin of the French, is one of his least successful works. 2. chroniques. For instance, The Chronicles of Saint-Dénis, and those of Nicholas Gilles. Strabo (13, under Scepsis) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus both preserve a tradition of the survival of Astyanax. 3. créance, belief, opinion. 4. Hérodote, Herodotus (about 445 B. C.), ii. 113–115. 5. Homère, Homer, Iliad, xxi. 167. 6. Sophocle, Sophocles (495-405), Edipus the King, 1224 sqq. 7. Euripide, Euripides, Phænician Women, 1456-1460. 8. commentateur. Camerarius (about 1603) is meant, whose note to Electra, 540-542, is here freely adapted. Page 10. -I. Acteurs. Render Andromaque, Andromache, Oreste, Orestes, Pylade, Pylades. 2. Epire, Epirus (kingdom in northwestern Greece); Buthrote, Buthrotum (a city in Epirus, opposite the island of Corcyra). ACT I. SCENE I. I. Oui. With this word Racine begins Iphigénie, Athalie and acts of other plays also. ami si fidèle. The mother of Pylades was the sister of Orestes's father, Agamemnon. They had been friends from boyhood and had co-operated in killing Clytemnæstra and in an at |